


Intermission

by levitatethis



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-18
Updated: 2010-05-18
Packaged: 2017-10-09 13:16:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/87894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levitatethis/pseuds/levitatethis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mohinder has an unexpected evening</p>
            </blockquote>





	Intermission

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Mylar Fic Prompt: "Under the Mistletoe"

_All the world's a stage,   
And all the men and women merely players;   
They have their exits and their entrances,   
And one man in his time plays many parts. _  
**-William Shakespeare**, **As You Like It**

 

It had started with a voiceless phone call. Only after hanging up had Mohinder contemplated what had barely been heard: a chair creaking, a quieted sigh, the faint sound of a throat swallowing and an intake of breath meant to preface a statement that instead gave way to the dial tone.

Concerned, Mohinder tried to put it out of his head while attempting to go through the motions of a routine life complete with last minute Christmas shopping in December. It must have been at the back of his mind--the address from his father's notes that he had looked up long before now but had never been able to follow up on--because at some point he gave over to it and made the night time journey into Queen's, to an inconsequential shop that had born witness to the first questioning breaths of one of the deadliest men.

Grays and Sons.

It looms innocently enough, drawing no suspicious attention amongst the selection of other mom and pop fix-it shops that line the block. But the walls house a story that would make the world shudder and Mohinder shivers his discontent. He stares at the darkened windows and is close to convincing himself to leave when he notices the muted light from a lamp deep inside.

Mohinder thrusts his gloved hands into his jacket pockets and glances around him at the few stragglers who litter the sidewalks. Shopping bags in hand, they chatter and stroll or briskly walk and avoid eye contact, crunching snow beneath their feet while a flurry of snowflakes drifts gently all about. The striped scarf around Mohinder's neck suddenly feels too tight and he gulps a deep breath, stretching his neck for relief, and reaches for the door.

The bell happily announces his entrance and makes turning back impossible. Mohinder tentatively closes the door behind him as he fastidiously observes his new surroundings. It feels as if he has stepped into a time machine that has spit him out into a Norman Rockwell existence of overwhelming yet ordered technical contraptions. Clocks of all kinds decorate the walls and fill up glass cases. He peers at the intricate faces that stare back at him, from one to the next, and then he is noting the magazines, books, and order forms that sit neatly piled on countertops. The soft sounds of holiday music play from a radio he cannot locate.

There is unexpected warmth in this shop that catches him off guard. It should be cold and unwelcoming.

He pulls his gloves off and puts them in his shoulder bag. As he steps quietly, further inside, he unravels his scarf, eventually letting the two ends hang loosely from his shoulders and down his chest. It is only when he begins to unbutton his jacket that he realizes how unprepared he is with absolutely no weapon of defense and no forewarning to anyone about where he has gone. But he has come too far to turn back and he resigns himself to finishing what has been started.

It is the sight of the figure hunched over the desk that brings the first pause to Mohinder's steps. For a moment he wonders if this is how his father felt, if he is now walking those same exact steps but in a parallel universe of forgotten time. Moving forward again he keeps his eyes on Sylar's back; knowing full well that Sylar knows he is there despite the lack of acknowledgement of his presence. Mohinder figures that no instinctive deadly assault is most likely a good sign for the night and his heart slows to a less painful pace.

He comes up around Sylar's back and peeks over his shoulder. An exquisite timepiece is in his left hand, opened up with its mechanical innards on display. Sylar tenderly runs the thumb of his right hand against the rounded edge. Mohinder turns up the right side of the desk, seeing Sylar's determined work ethic written on his face, and curiously beholds him. He has never seen Sylar in _this_ world, when Gabriel was the name he lived by and the family business was the life he toiled in.

It is a strange dichotomy from watchmaker to murderer, from everyman to the exceptional. However, taking in the lines of concentration that detail his forehead above his black-rimmed glasses for the job in front of him, Mohinder sees where the two worlds bleed into each other.

“What gave it away?” Sylar suddenly speaks, still staring at the piece in his hand.

Startled, Mohinder jumps slightly then calmly says, “It was the menacing silence I believe.”

Sylar smirks and shifts his eyes upwards, regarding Mohinder. Behind the eyepiece Sylar appears younger, more intellectual than physical. But the darkness of his eyes beneath the black frame gives off an ominous vibe that reminds Mohinder to watch his step.

_A wolf in sheep's clothing. _

A pause unfolds between them before Sylar says, “No cavalry at your side? It's a bit presumptuous to think I won't hurt you. Either you have death wish or really are that naïve.”

Without missing a beat Mohinder retorts, “Must be the conditioning. You've called before.” He leaves out the, _'when you needed help, and you didn't kill me then,' _but Sylar quickly looking away to the timepiece and then back up to meet his eyes tells Mohinder that the sentiment is understood.

“Besides,” Mohinder says turning around and settling his gaze on a spare chair. “I was curious as to what prompted this particular call.”

He walks over to the chair and grabs it by the top of the backrest, dragging it over next to the desk so that he can sit down and rest his right arm on the desk's surface.

“The perfect lab rat. You know what they say about curiosity?” Sylar asks in a tone that temporarily halts Mohinder's movement.

Slipping the strap of his bag off his shoulder and over his head, Mohinder drops it to the floor and sits down. “What do they say about denial?”

He hopes the words convey a firmness of resolve that does not betray the trepidation he is feeling at being here that now pushes down heavily on his limbs. Again he questions why has put himself in such a risky position by coming here with no plan in mind. He watches Sylar carefully put down the timepiece and remove his glasses, folding in the earpieces and placing it on the desk.

The moment Sylar looks back at him with a challenge in his fixed gaze, Mohinder tries to diffuse the tension with a question that is at once innocent and confrontational. “You don't strike me as the sentimental type. I thought you had buried all of this.”

Sylar regards him and for a second Mohinder wonders if he has miscalculated the inflection of the evening; the drive behind the cryptic phone call is suddenly less clear. Nervously, Mohinder ambles his gaze to the doorway that leads to the back of the store.

“I know this world like the back of my hand,” Sylar calls Mohinder's attention back his way. He sits back in his chair and stares straight ahead at the wall behind Mohinder. “I know where all the pieces fit. I put them in their rightful order, make them live and breathe or lay dismantled. I rule this world.”

His body still focused ahead, Sylar shifts his eyes to Mohinder. “Even when I worked with Chandra, I still kept this for me. It was my touch point.”

He looks down at the timepiece before him and Mohinder, confused, questions, “And you've come back to seek forgiveness from a life that no longer exists? One you turned away from when it no longer felt worthy?”

Sylar turns to him. “Perspective comes in the strangest of packages. It turns out you can go home again.”

Mohinder wrinkles his brow, parting his lips as consonants and vowels tangle up, refusing to form coherent words.

“Perspective, Mohinder.”

The clarity of a revelation rings out but is not one that Mohinder grasps as of yet. Out of distraction or mindlessness, he reaches for the timepiece and examines it under the lamp that sits on the desk just behind his right shoulder. Mohinder can feel Sylar's eyes on him and he steels himself for Sylar to snatch it out of his hands; but he doesn't.

Mohinder gently touches his thumb against the opened back, feeling the bumps and edges of the tiny cogs and screws that fit pieces into each other with a precision he can only begin to fathom. He thinks about the details that make up the body of a cell and how the intricate interconnections fit just right to create works of awe inspiring heights--the same things that can be calculatedly manipulated for entirely altruistic or selfish purposes.

As if reading his convoluted mind, Sylar interrupts his rambling thoughts. “There's no lie in that. It only works one way. People play with the screws. Too loose and it falls out of time. Too tight and it shudders to break. Those without a true appreciation try to exert a strong hand, they try to challenge where they have no place being.”

Mohinder works to translate the metaphor and, returning the darkened gaze, asks, “Is the irony of lamenting about being manipulated by others really lost on you?” as he places the timepiece back on the desk.

Sylar leans forward and reclaims it, never taking his eyes away from Mohinder who, in turn, sucks in a sharp breath and holds still. The closeness of Sylar imposingly in his space is an act of blatant aggression that Mohinder attempts to defy with unflinching steadfastness. It is also strikingly personal in its call back to long hours on the road when familiarity bred from half-truths gave rise to their harsh reality.

“They tried to rewrite my past to force my hand,” Sylar rumbles lowly with his own unwavering vigor.

Understanding flashes in Mohinder's brain at Sylar's reference to Arthur and Angela Petrelli who had, independently of each other, told Sylar details of a past that had never been, all to bring him into line for elaborate grabs at ultimate power.

“No one forced your hand,” Mohinder says astringently, jutting the index finger of his left hand against the desk for emphasis. “You happily gave this up for a taste of the kingdom.”

Sylar narrows his eyes at the rebuke and draws his lips into a tight line. “Consider the gold tarnished. My--,”

“Lies.”

“Creations--revealed my truth. Theirs was nothing but deception meant for gains that benefited no one. Betrayal is in their blood--Arthur, Angela…” Sylar pauses and adds, “Chandra.”

“My father did not lie to you,” Mohinder abruptly snaps and sticks out his chin. “He saw what you really were. It was you who tried to hide it, excuse it.”

Sylar moves back in his chair, resting his arms on the desk, and begins drawing invisible circles on the surface while keeping his palms flat against the wood. “He lied to you about your reason for even existing.”

Mohinder huffs an exasperated breath and, in a near mirror image, sits back. He drops his left hand to his lap while keeping his right one angled across the desk. “Please don't act as if you're avenging me. Don't disrespect--,”

The words get caught up in his throat as he fights to defend his father, a man with whom he had at best had a strained one-sided relationship--a one-way plea for approval, while being mindful of never living up to the expectations that were set at a bar he could never reach. That Sylar shared a piece of Chandra never made available to Mohinder is a hurtful prospect that he carries with envy and frustration. Many times he has imagined the conversation with Sylar that confesses the secrets that Chandra felt he could not handle but could be bestowed on the man who would eventually kill him.

“Don't speak of things you only know a thread of,” Mohinder says, cringing and rolling his eyes as Sylar smirks and folds his arms across his chest.

“He kept so much from you,” Sylar says, too casually to be anything but taunting. He shakes his head dismissively. “He thought of you in ways that were so far removed from who you really are. That's how he treated you--shooed you away like a pest.”

Sylar raises an eyebrow. “They present very different faces to others, but if you look close you can see where the pieces have been forced together.”

“Would you give the doublespeak a rest?” Mohinder sighs with irritation. “If there's a point somewhere in the middle of your roundabout way of speaking, would you mind getting to it?”

Sylar pushes his chair back a few inches and looks around the shop. “This is who I've always been.” Sylar nods at their surroundings then angles his head downward in Mohinder's direction. The silent indication of watchmaker and all-powerful being is clear as day.

“I live it--but with them it is a game of pretend.” Sylar tones unyielding in forceful judgment. What would sound despondent from someone else is now conveyed like a declarative battle cry.

Sylar reaches for the timepiece again but Mohinder grabs it and encloses it within the confines of his left hand. Sylar glares his way but Mohinder makes a show of bringing his hand to his chest, suggesting that the piece will stay with him until Sylar makes sense.

“You see it all around,” Sylar acquiesces while remaining fervently authoritative. “The convenience of falsities that becomes so ingrained that no one bothers to look closer. People convince themselves of what's not there. They stop existing in their own lives. They choose to be who they are not and convince themselves…under the mistletoe my parents were the picture of a loving couple. They were the way others expected them to be in that moment--smiles, laughter, holding hands. It was far from the truth--they were more distant with each other--but still everyone believed. I knew the truth.”

“Everything's an act?” Mohinder queries.

Unexpectedly he feels his arm forced from his chest to the desk. He watches, wide-eyed, as his fingers are unfurled and the timepiece is moved by an in invisible grip from its perch, across the table, and into Sylar's left palm.

“There are no cons here,” Sylar says as he eyes the watch and puts it down, letting his index finger linger on it affectionately. “There is a specific order to things, for it to work. You can't fake it.”

Without thinking, Mohinder asks, “And why am I here?”

Sylar looks at him in surprise.

“You talk about betrayal,” Mohinder says and he rubs the fingers of his right hand along the pointed edges of the desk. “And you say this place houses no lies. So why am I here? How do I figure into this grand theory of yours?”

A tiny smile turns up the sides of Sylar's mouth and he angles himself forward. “We came undone at the same time--Zane, the preparation you secretly undertook under my nose--all out of self-preservation.”

“I tried to kill you,” Mohinder points out. “I still--,”

“But not tonight.”

Mohinder hesitates with a rebuttal and Sylar's smile grows wider, knowingly, in a way that rankles Mohinder's nerves.

“Tonight's a reprieve,” Sylar adds.

“An intermission,” Mohinder mutters and unintentionally catches Sylar's eyes in a gaze that takes a hold of them until a slight shift by Mohinder allows them to look away and get back to the conversation at hand.

Mohinder stares down at his left hand as he fidgets with a loose thread on his jacket by one of the buttons when he hears Sylar say, “We know where we stand.”

Mohinder glances up, his eyes wide and questioning, then narrow and suspicious. “And where may that be?”

A moment of silence passes and Sylar says, commandingly, “On the brink of a new dawn, Mohinder. Arthur was only the first…_casualty_.”

_There will be others,_ races through Mohinder's mind and he feels the returning strains of panic pound out in his heart. He leans towards the desk with both his hands palms up in an open gesture. “It doesn't have to be his way, Sylar.”

Sylar pushes back in his chair, slightly turning it towards Mohinder, and sits up taller, pulling his back straight. Resting his left forearm on the desk's surface he lays the right one on his chair's armrest. “Yes it does,” he says. “But you already know that.”

The rush of worry from the declaration forces Mohinder to his feet. “Even if there are those who should be punished for what they've done, this can't be the only option--I'll stop you.”

The threat is toothless but the assertion behind it is honest enough and Mohinder does not falter as Sylar takes his time standing up to loom in front of him.

“You'll try.” Sylar smirks, cocking his head to the side.

This time the unwavering look held between them is filled with pulsing tension, fiery and confrontational, and passionate. While Sylar appears amused, Mohinder's mind is flooded with the names and faces of those he needs to warn. Breaking free from the stare down, Mohinder picks his bag up from the floor and moves quickly by Sylar, heading towards the front of the store. He throws the strap of his bag over his head and onto his shoulder, not caring that his jacket is undone and in state of disarray before heading back out into the cold.

“Thank you.”

Mohinder freezes with his hand on the door. He looks over at Sylar who is watching him, glasses in hand, from beside the desk.

“For what?” Mohinder asks uncertainly but with distemper, aware he has much to do.

Sylar does not reply, instead unfolding his glasses and placing them on his face. He offers a half smile which stings of condescension and yet quiet appreciation. Turning away from Mohinder he calls out, “Make sure the door shuts behind you, sometimes there's a draft,” and sits down at his desk.

Mohinder stays where he is, confused at first by Sylar's choice of words. He drags his eyes across the interior of the shop again before settling on Sylar's distant figure. Mohinder drops his shoulders as a held breath escapes his lips. He drops his gaze to the floor and brings it to his feet, standing precariously at the threshold.

_The die is cast. _

Pulling backwards on the door the bells chime his exit.   
 

**Author's Note:**

> Mylar Fic  
> **First Place for Best Use of Prompt**


End file.
